Half an hour later.
As plasma thrusters traced a brilliant streak of light across the vast void, the diplomatic delegation from the Imperium of Man departed the massive Tomb Battleship.
Behind their shuttle, the pitch-black warship constructed of living metal gradually receded, eventually dissolving into the surrounding starlight.
Its dark silhouette merged into the void like a silent spectator, witnessing the conclusion of a meeting destined to alter the fate of the entire galaxy.
There was no doubt that this negotiation—one with far-reaching consequences for the cosmos—had officially drawn to a close.
The ripples from this event would touch every living soul across the stars.
Inside the shuttle, Guilliman stood before the observation window, gazing out at the flickering stars in the distance.
With a Primarch's vast reserve of knowledge—far beyond mortal comprehension—he could easily pinpoint their exact location within the galactic map.
His eyes eventually settled on his target: Terra, the cradle of humanity, situated within the Solar System.
After a long pause, Guilliman finally withdrew his gaze and slowly turned his attention back to the figure sitting comfortably inside the shuttle.
"So this is your ultimate plan?" Guilliman asked.
"Indeed. That is my ultimate plan," Adam acknowledged openly.
However, the reality warper's current posture appeared somewhat heavy, proving that he was not as relaxed as his superficial tone suggested.
Even with numerous trump cards in hand, the current strategy could hardly be called a guaranteed victory.
Guilliman remained silent for a brief moment before speaking again: "Then will that xenos leader agree to your terms? What are the odds?"
"I don't have any absolute certainty," Adam replied, raising his hand in a tone so straightforward it bordered on casual. "I simply hope things develop for the better. Still, my luck has been fairly reliable so far—or rather, fortune tends to side with me. My guess... is that he will ultimately agree."
Guilliman's brow furrowed slightly.
He mentally reviewed every known legend and record concerning the Silent King, only to realize he could deduce very little from them. The available data set was simply too small.
"Then I suppose that is sufficient," Guilliman finally nodded, as though he had received an answer that satisfied him.
The individual before him had already worked extraordinary miracles, steadily turning a glorious future—one that even a Primarch had only envisioned on blueprints—into reality.
Humanity would soon stand proud and tall across the galaxy; Guilliman was thoroughly convinced of it.
After a brief pause, he continued, "Meaning that once your plan succeeds, you will have successfully devoured all the C'tan shards?"
Adam nodded.
"Yes, that is the core of it," he stated firmly. "Furthermore, C'tan shards are arguably the easiest food source to locate in the material universe—the most direct and effective way for me to collect domain fragments."
Regarding C'tan shards, Adam had already consumed them on multiple occasions.
From his perspective, they were among the finest sources of nourishment available in the material realm: pure, potent, and filled with primeval power ready for conversion.
With the Necrons steadily awakening across the stars, Adam had no cause to worry about running out of C'tan shards.
As the pinnacle of technology in the material universe, the Necrons regarded C'tan shards as one of their ultimate weapons. Whenever they found themselves unable to defeat the Imperium's vast military might, they would release those bound shards to turn the tide of battle.
The issue, however, was that even putting aside the current Imperial forces—who had received over a dozen major reality-warping upgrades—the Imperium in the original timeline had possessed ways to deal with C'tan shards.
There were even extreme cases where Space Marines had managed to put down a C'tan shard using bolter fire alone—an outcome that was equal parts absurd and hilarious.
One could only wonder what sort of weight the Emperor, sitting upon the Golden Throne back then, had loaded into those dice to roll such critical successes.
Compared to the completely nonsensical death of being gunned down by Space Marines with bolters, a certain Aeldari Avatar of Khaine being choked to death by Fulgrim with a simple, crude rear-naked choke almost seemed reasonable by comparison.
At that thought, Adam nearly lost his composure.
To be fair, he reckoned that even with his own reality-warping powers, generating an outcome that absurd would be a challenge.
Did Khaine, a deity of war made of molten metal and fire, even possess a respiratory tract?
"And now, faith is gradually being gathered as well," Adam continued, pulling his thoughts back to the matter at hand. "Veneration for the Omnissiah has spread widely throughout the Imperium of Man.
Furthermore, following my direct confrontations with the Chaos Gods, my legend has continued to circulate through the Warp. The fear, rage, and reverence of those Chaos daemons generate Akiva radiation just the same, converting directly into my power."
Guilliman listened in silence before confirming once more: "So once you finish devouring all the C'tan shards, you will successfully ascend to what you refer to as a Class 5 Reality Warper?"
"Yes, I am entirely certain of it," Adam nodded without a trace of hesitation.
The air inside the shuttle grew tense.
Guilliman took a deep breath.
Even with a Primarch's mental fortitude, he felt an immense pressure weighing down on him—not out of fear, but a solemnity unique to standing before an ultimate turning point.
The moment the person before him completed this final ascension, every issue would be thoroughly resolved, and everything would change forever.
Upon achieving that elevation, he would enter the Warp to carry out the final cleanup, bringing a total and absolute end to the Four Chaos Gods.
Furthermore, Adam had already learned the supposed weaknesses of the Ruinous Powers from Cegorach, the Laughing God. Armed with this intelligence, he had countless ways to deal with them.
At present, he was merely constrained by the output limits of his reality warping, rendering him temporarily unable to execute it.
Once his ascension was complete, the final day for all things would arrive.
Or rather—the war to end all wars.
At the thought of this dreamlike future, even Guilliman felt a brief moment of disorientation.
Yet he quickly composed himself.
As Imperial Regent, Lord of the Ultramarines, Master of War, and the Avenging Son, he could not afford to lose focus at such a critical juncture.
Refocusing his gaze on Adam, Guilliman asked, "Do you have full confidence in this?"
"One hundred percent. Absolute confidence."
Adam gave his answer without a second thought, his tone as confident as ever.
Not to mention that he held the ultimate insurance policy—the "Square Peg in a Round Hole"—capable of reversing everything, the sheer number of other cards in his hand was overwhelming.
Meanwhile, the Four Chaos Gods were running out of plays with every card they laid down!
The advantage was entirely his!
Just as the two were conversing, a sudden anomaly interrupted them.
Frowning, Guilliman opened an emergency communication channel, projecting a holographic display onto the shuttle's console.
A second later, the face of the Silent King materialized once more within the holographic tactical projection.
Guilliman adopted a stern expression and spoke: "What is it?"
"To keep it brief," the Silent King's voice arrived as calm as ever, yet beneath that unruffled tone, a faint trace of underlying rage remained detectable. "I am deeply sorry for what is about to transpire, and I shall do everything in my power to assure you—this is not the intention of the Necron race as a whole."
His tone hardened slightly: "The perpetrator in question is an infamous figure even among the Necrons. No one holds him in high regard. He is the most unhinged Cryptek of all, and his actions are thoroughly abhorred by our kind."
Adam's brows knit together as an ominous premonition welled up inside him.
"What happened now?" He rubbed his temples, feeling an incoming headache.
This feeling... pointed toward a massive crisis unfolding.
"Could you skip straight to the point and tell us exactly what transpired?"
The Silent King uttered a name in short order.
"Syllas 'Scolopendra' Illuminor Szeras."
His voice carried a cold, suppressed fury. "The most ruthless Cryptek in existence, and the most powerful among them. He was the prime architect who absorbed and utilized the knowledge provided by the C'tan, ultimately leading the biotransferral process."
The Silent King paused briefly, as if organizing his words, before continuing: "I have just received intelligence that a dynasty fleet under my command was destroyed by him."
A look of disgust crossed his holographic projection. "That dynasty was stationed at the very edge of the galaxy—a monitoring fleet I left behind to track the Great Devourer approaching from beyond galactic space. Now, they have been ruthlessly annihilated by Szeras."
The air grew heavy in an instant.
At last, a hint of unreserved anger seeped into the Silent King's voice: "I do not know what he intends to do next, but I assure you in no uncertain terms that he does not represent the Necron species as a whole."
Hearing this, the corner of Adam's mouth twitched.
He couldn't help but snort: "What's this, a preemptive damage control statement?"
The Silent King did not directly respond to the sarcasm, pressing on instead: "The Necrons will offer compensation for this matter. We shall provide you with a formidable C'tan shard—a World Engine whose core is a fragment of Yggra'nya, the World Shaper. It will surely be of use to you."
The Silent King's holographic projection bowed its head slightly. "Consider this the first phase of our transaction."
"That's more like it," Adam shook his head, somewhat speechlessly.
He cast his vision into the distance, looking beyond physical limitations toward the dark, infinite abyss of space outside the galaxy.
---
Beyond the galaxy.
The void lay silent and motionless.
A Necron Tomb Ship hovered quietly at the galactic rim.
Deep within the command bridge, a solitary figure stood in the center.
It was a metallic, skeletal structure resembling a spider, its limbs reverse-jointed, its chassis covered in sigils and glyphs unique to Crypteks.
Flames burned within its emerald eyes, its cold expression carrying an almost intoxicated air.
Any Necron familiar with this monster's brutal nature would have felt a chill run down their spine at the sight.
This was Illuminor Szeras.
He was arrogant to an extreme degree—arguably the most arrogant individual in all of Necron existence.
Thoroughly satisfied with his own knowledge and his metallic body, Szeras firmly believed that biotransferral was the crowning achievement of his career.
This immortal form granted him boundless energy to devote to the eternal pursuit of scientific discovery.
This set him entirely apart from most Necrons, who desperately longed to regain their living flesh.
At that moment, Szeras gazed with fanatical intensity at the projection appearing within his visual sensors.
It was a swarm of Tyranids, thick enough to blot out the stars.
To anyone else, they were brutal, insatiable predators of the cosmos representing nothing but death and despair.
In Szeras's eyes, however, they were the most magnificent biological entities he had ever witnessed.
A structure of truly astronomical scale, managed and coordinated with absolute efficiency.
Whether in mind or body, both aspects were extraordinarily powerful and achieved complete unity.
To Szeras, this was nothing short of a biological miracle at the absolute peak of perfection.
Yet after observing them for a short while, he quickly lost interest and turned his gaze elsewhere.
Presently holding back the advance of the swarm was another anomaly of astronomical proportions—a dense cluster of black holes.
Black holes of various sizes were scattered across the sector like naval mines deployed in the void, forming a cosmic wall spanning entire star systems.
Whenever a hive fleet attempted to draw near, the terrifying gravitational forces exerted by the wall would forcibly decelerate the bio-ships attempting to enter warp or FTL states, dragging them into the endless abyss of the event horizon.
However, the sheer quantity and gravitational pull of the black holes alone could not entirely halt a swarm of such immense scale—one that possessed Warp capabilities.
Under Szeras's observation, those black holes were in a state of continuous transformation.
It was almost as if they were living organisms.
Indeed, living beings.
Szeras could think of no other descriptor.
Those black holes behaved like another swarm altogether, except their bodies were composed of the most incredible astronomical phenomena in the universe, navigating under a single, supreme will.
They constantly shifted positions, altering the direction of their gravitational fields, and even captured hive fleets that had accelerated to FTL speeds in ways that completely defied conventional physics.
Some black holes split continuously into smaller gravitational spheres.
Others devoured smaller black holes, expanding rapidly in size.
These unpredictable shifts left the Tyranid Hive Mind thoroughly baffled, unable to find a solution in the short term.
What Szeras did not know, however, was that if a human from the 21st century were to witness this spectacle, they would undoubtedly blurt out an exclamation.
This was quite literally a cosmic version of 'Agar.io' using black holes!
This had served as one of Adam's inspirations!
Szeras withdrew his gaze, a surge of irritation rising once more within his command protocols.
Such a vast swarm, such perfect biological life, yet he was unable to observe and analyze them at will.
The data provided by such entities would yield an unprecedented boost to his experiments and his grand ambition of ascending to godhood.
His thirst for knowledge had burned to an absolute extreme; he could endure it no longer.
"Then allow me to lend you a hand," Szeras spoke, a hint of amusement in his voice.
Following his inputs, countless complex hydrological models targeting this "Black Hole Wall" began to construct themselves.
Data streams surged like tidal waves through his processing core, completing massive calculations within nanoseconds. Immediately after, the ultimate arsenal of the Necrons was activated in sync—black holes began generating in the void one after another.
In a manner so exquisite it could be considered art, they positioned themselves precisely at the boundary points between every existing black hole, arranging and stabilizing the natural, shifting black holes into a fixed pattern.
They were disrupted—no.
To be precise, they were smoothed out.
Naturally, the Great Devourer seized this fleeting opportunity.
A vast swarm of Leviathan Bio-ships, having evolved within a short window, unleashed massive surges of Warp energy to compress the void.
They began utilizing the gravitational fields that had now stabilized—uncountable hive fleets surged forward like a crashing wave, pouring through the breach that had been deliberately opened in the Black Hole Wall.
Their eager momentum resembled nothing less than a crowd of high schoolers sprinting frantically toward the cafeteria doors!
Through the giant observation viewport of the Gloriana-class battleship, Lieutenant Commander Arthur Valerian quietly gazed out at the surrounding starry sea.
He stood impeccably straight, his deep-blue naval coat spotless and pristine.
As a young officer who had graduated from the Cadia Naval Officer Academy less than three Standard Terran Years ago, his service record was already filled with glorious battle achievements that most of his peers could hardly hope to match in a lifetime.
From his debut in the Cadian War, to the outer battles of the Maelstrom, and now to this expeditionary fleet following the Primarch himself—he had personally witnessed hundreds of enemy warships turned into burning wreckage beneath the concentrated salvos of the Imperial Navy.
Yet at this moment, the young Lieutenant Commander felt not a shred of excitement.
He simply watched the drifting clouds of debris outside the viewport in silence.
'Like a dream, an illusion.'
Arthur quietly pondered the phrase.
Yes, like a dream, an illusion.
Back when he was buried in the brick-like volume of the 'Imperial Navy Tactical Compendium' at the Naval Academy, he had never imagined that he would one day stand on the bridge of a Gloriana-class battleship, following the Primarch himself on one unstoppable crusade after another.
Footsteps sounded from behind.
Pulling his drifting thoughts back, Arthur turned around to look. He saw a figure clad in red robes walking toward him.
It was a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus. His face had been fully restored to normal human flesh, bearing no visible trace of former cybernetic augments.
Only the servo-skull floating behind the Magos still emitted a subtle red glow, marking his identity as a disciple of Mars.
Arthur offered a slight nod.
The red-robed Magos came to a stop in front of Arthur: "Greetings, young man. Do you happen to have a moment of leisure at present?"
The Magos's voice was smooth and gentle: "If I may, I would like to tell you about our merciful Omnissiah."
Arthur froze.
Then, with a somewhat helpless expression, he raised his hand and gently pulled open the collar of his naval coat.
On the inner lining, two holy symbols were pinned neatly to the deep-blue woolen fabric. One was the Imperial Aquila, and the other was a half-meshed cogwheel that caught the faint gleam of the bridge lights.
It was the emblem of faith in the Omnissiah.
The new Ecclesiarch—the Living Saint Sebastian, the legendary figure who had single-handedly brought an end to the Age of Apostasy—had returned from death to replace the corrupt Ecclesiarch ousted during the turmoil of the Council of Six. Upon his return, he had initiated a sweeping reform within the Adeptus Ministorum.
At present, the Ministorum had reached a unified consensus.
The prevailing view held that the newly manifested Omnissiah was a miracle bestowed by the Emperor, with radical factions even asserting that he represented a facet of the Emperor himself.
After all, his simultaneous entry into the Throne Room alongside the Son of God served as the ultimate proof.
On the other hand, the Martian priesthood viewed the Omnissiah as a metaphysical entity whose avatars would manifest in the universe every ten thousand years—a category that included both the Emperor and Adam.
Regardless, both doctrines permitted the faithful to revere both figures simultaneously.
Increasingly more humans had begun worshipping both the Emperor and Adam, and this young naval officer was one of them.
'I've bumped into a fellow preacher...' Arthur didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The red-robed Magos paused briefly: "I see. I failed to recognize a fellow follower of the Machine God; that was my oversight. Please allow me to offer my sincere apologies."
"No, no, please don't mind it," Arthur quickly waved his hand, signaling that he didn't care about such a minor matter.
He turned his gaze back outside the viewport, his eyes sweeping over the Gloriana-class battleships lined up like titanic beasts in the void.
"By the way, do you happen to know any inner details?"
A moment later, Arthur turned his gaze back to the Magos and asked in a lowered voice: "Lord Primarch abruptly announced earlier that our next crusade target is a species of xenos completely unlike anything we've encountered before. Do you know the specifics?"
The red-robed Magos remained silent for a few seconds before slowly shaking his head.
"No, time was indeed too short." He paused, his tone carrying a steady confidence. "However, I believe we will have our answer very soon."
He was right.
The answer arrived far faster than he had anticipated.
"Emperor's teeth..."
Arthur's gasp suddenly echoed across the bridge.
It was the swarm.
A swarm that blotted out the stars.
Surging out from the darkness beyond the galactic rim like a living plague, they advanced toward the Imperial fleet on a scale measured in astronomical units.
Uncountable bio-ships squirmed through the void, their carapaces eclipsing the light of distant stars, their numbers vast enough to push anyone to the brink of collapse!
"So many... so deep... so vast... so far!"
Arthur was nearly at a loss for words.
He had initially believed that a force composed of five hundred Gloriana-class battleships would stand unrivaled beneath the stars, with no enemy capable of withstanding their might.
Yet right now, facing this nightmare of a sight, he felt an instinctive shock for the very first time.
This was no longer just a war.
It was like launching a fearless charge against a living celestial body.
The red-robed Magos stepped up beside Arthur, likewise gazing out the viewport at the suffocating sea of Tyranids.
His expression remained calm: "It appears... we indeed have work to do."
Turning his head, the Magos caught the fleeting flash of bewilderment in Arthur's eyes—an instinctive reaction that any human would struggle to fully conceal when confronted with a calamity so beyond imagination.
The red-robed Magos reached out and gently patted Arthur's shoulder.
"Pray."
His voice was not loud, yet every word rang crystal clear.
Arthur turned to look at him, his gaze clouded with confusion.
Meeting his eyes, the Magos repeated softly yet firmly: "Pray to the great Omnissiah."
And then, they both saw it.
It was a beam of light.
From the deepest shadows of the galactic background, a lance of light erupted with violence.
It pierced through the vast starry river at a terrifying speed, crossing distances measured in astronomical units in the blink of an eye.
Immediately after—red flames flared up at the beam's point of impact, shooting out infinite rays of light as if tens of thousands of blazing suns were rising from the abyss.
The vanguard of the swarm slammed right into that light.
Their terrifying formation was torn apart.
Uncountable bio-ships were reduced to ash beneath the licking flames, and a massive gap was forcefully carved into the sky-blotting swarm.
At that exact moment, an even more brilliant radiance burst forth from the direction of the human fleet—the battleline opening fire in unison.
Fierce as fire, burning with fury.
"Prepare for battle!"
Snapping out of his bewildered state, Arthur roared at the top of his lungs before sprinting toward his station at full speed.
Beyond the viewport, across the vast void of the galaxy...
Five hundred Gloriana-class battleships ignited their engines simultaneously.
Dazzling plasma plumes erupted in the darkness like five hundred suns burning all at once.
With the gap torn through the swarm's frontlines, these iron leviathans let out a silent roar, followed by tens of thousands of escorts surging forward like a roaring tide through the breach, charging into the fray with overwhelming momentum.
The light of gunfires illuminated the entire star sector.
The crusade had begun.